Hawaii won’t ban genetically modified coffee

30th March 2008

Kona coffee growers are concerned that Hawaii state legislators in late March decided to shelve until 2012 a bill that would have prohibited the growing of genetically modified coffee.

Big Island growers of the premium variety were worried that the genetically modified coffee could contaminate Kona coffee, a report in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin said. Customers for Kona in Europe and Japan would stop buying it if this occurred, one grower spokesman was quoted as saying.

Those in favour of genetically modified coffee cultivation said that the practice would not endanger Kona because at present there were plans to begin trials only on another island, Oahu.

Those plans relate to a trial of naturally decaffeinated coffee by Integrated Coffee Technologies, due to start in early 2009.

The Hawaiian government is to form a task force to consider the merits of genetically modified coffee, State Senator Jill Tokuda was quoted as saying. The successful production of a decaffeinated coffee bean could effectively double the state’s coffee production and bring major economic benefits, she said.

Meanwhile, a proposal to impose a moratorium on genetically modified coffee was rejected by the legislature, because, Senator Tokuda said, it “sends out a negative message.”